Fear the Walking Dead S1E6: “The Good Man” Review

Sweet Release.

The first season of Fear the Walking Dead is now over and I couldn’t be more happy, because this show is not good. With six episodes, this show has demonstrated quite a bit about cash-grabs and knock-offs, but we’ll save that discussion for another day. Let’s break down this episode first.

The episode began with a CGI shot of the Los Angeles skyline that looked so fake it appeared to be lifted from Nintendo GameCube flight simulator. It was meant to instill a feeling of dread, but instead made me laugh because it looked really bad. The show could have, instead, showed us nothing and it would have been way better.

Our extremely likable heroes have a quick debate about whether or not they want to murder the U.S. soldier they spent the last episode torturing, and ultimately decided to leave him alive because he might yet still be of use to them. Altruism incarnate.

The characters decide to raid the army base in order to rescue their family members, resulting in the longest stretch of uninterrupted actual story we’ve seen all season. The adults storm the base by leading zombies to the gates while the kids wait with car. Meanwhile, Nick and Three Dog make their move to escape inside, choosing to leave the hundreds of other wrongfully imprisoned human beings to die.

We get some standard zombie-fighting schlock, which is fun, and there is enough action and chaos to respect the fact that this episode appeared to try. Things are making sense! Character logic is sound! Wow! It all comes to a head in a kitchen room where Three Dog manages to seal out the zombies. Dr. Exner decides to stay with her ailing patients, but then presumably commits suicide, whittling down the survivors list a bit more.

There is a final confrontation in the parking garage, where the soldiers steal the car that the kids are protecting and make their quick escape. While comforting the children, the maimed torturee points his gun at Daniel, but decides at the last minute to aim his gun at Ofelia, who he then shoots in the shoulder. This is also the part where the episode falls apart, because people begin to act illogical again.

Travis goes from zero to psychopath in under a second, acting far more violent than his character should. For a man who has been endlessly preaching about the importance of maintaining a level head, it seems more likely that he would just…grab the gun or tackle the soldier to take him out of play. Instead, we are shown a…um…character arc? He goes from complete wimp to dangerous maniac, thereby skipping the stages in-between that would make him a likable character.

The crew escapes, but not before Ofelia can lament the pile of dead bodies around her that only exists because her crew led zombies to the camp. We were treated to an extra eleven minutes of show this time around, which was at least used productively…Liza has a zombie bite and the gang needs to decide whether or not they should kill her so she can go film the next season of Orange is the New Black won’t turn into a zombie. There are some solid character interactions here, and while good, they can’t quite make up for the whole rest of the season. It was a decent ending to the show, but only comparatively.

This show sucks.

Odds and Ends

I’m back and forth on whether or not being on the coast is a good idea…the show has an interesting situation here. It’s probably won’t doing anything interesting with it, though.

Three Dog got his cuff links back, so that’s a win, right?

Sandrine Holt was underused this season, in my opinion. And they won’t be able to increase her part next season because she shot herself in the brain. So that’s a bummer.

That one guy walked into a helicopter blade, which was every kind of hilarious.

Alex Russo likes to talk about television. You can read more of his insane ramblings on Twitter.